


TIME (will take you away from me)

by Mikkeneko



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb works that 20 int, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, I did my best to deliver, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Isolation, M/M, Sensory Deprivation, Trauma, Whump, some unhealthy coping mechanisms, the gift recipient requested Molly whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-08 14:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17387759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: During a pitched battle against an enemy wizard, Mollymauk is zapped away to a pocket dimension. The Mighty Nein must race the clock to get him back before a horrible fate befalls him -- but even if they can recover him, the damage may already have been done.A Winter's Exchange gift fic for CatKing_Catkin.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CatKing_Catkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/gifts).



> Author's Notes: Written for CatKing_Catkin for the Widomauk Winter Fic Exchange! The request was "some straight up h/c with Molly as the one getting whumped" and I did my best.
> 
> Please do not correct me on any of the D&D mechanics that are off in this fic. I know I'm using some of them incorrectly, but my philosophy remains the same as it ever has: I use game mechanics to the extent that it makes a good dramatic narrative, and fudge it as soon as it isn't doing that any more.

 

They saw it when it happened, of course. But there wasn't much they could do about it at the time.

(Afterwards -- during the uncertainty -- each and every one of them went over every move of the fight, wondering if there was something else they should have done, could have done, to keep it from happening.)

But at the time, it was just one more damn thing in a melee of damn things. They were fighting a spellcaster -- they'd come to confront him over the illegal magical weapons he'd been supplying across the border to Xhorhas, and he'd attacked as soon as they'd gotten in the door -- and while not the most harrowing or dangerous battle they'd been in, it had been one of the most frustrating. He'd plagued them with a swarm of enslaved elementals, rains of fire and of ice, and an array of baffling and frustrating spells that kept them slowed, blinded, dazed, knocked around, and struggling with every step and every blow.

Fjord and Beau battled the summons while Nott and Mollymauk went on the offensive, with Caleb throwing buffs on them and countering the enemy's magic at every chance he got. So far, Jester had been keeping them on their feet and in fighting trim. Beau and Caleb both would have gone down long ago if not for her and their enemy must have known it too -- because between flinging bolts of fire or shards of ice, he suddenly reached behind him to pull something small and dark off the shelf behind it and fling it in her direction.

It was just a coincidence that right at that moment, Mollymauk had been between the caster and his fellow tiefling. It was just chance that he was in the right place at the right time to reach up his hand and grab the missile out of midair.

It was a little globe of dark metal, unpainted, with only a few raised edges and ridged patterns interrupting its surface. But Molly hardly had time to glance at it; the moment his skin touched the metal, an arc of dark lightning jumped from its surface to his hand. In a flash it sizzled up his body, outlining the space around him in livid unlight, and then he was gone. Two scimitars clattered to the ground in the place where he had been standing, followed by a _thunk_ from the orb hitting the stone.

 

* * *

 

 

From Molly's perspective he stayed right where he was -- it was the rest of the world that disappeared in a flash of black light. The stone disappeared from beneath his boots and he dropped -- just enough to jar his ankles and leave him stumbling, not enough for him to actually have time to ready himself for a landing. "Ow!" he exclaimed as he tumbled forward, tail lashing for balance as he went down to his knees and nearly onto his face.

He got back up again after a moment, frowning as he raised his head to look around. The noises of shouting and battle that surrounded him had vanished with the rest of the universe, leaving only silence behind.

"Hello?" he called out, boots scraping against -- stone, yes, stone. The floor beneath him was of rough, unpolished stone, cut into blocks and set together without mortar, he discovered as he nearly tripped over a crack. His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness, pupils widening and then expanding further as they took in the utter darkness in the room.

Thankfully his darkvision saved him from being completely blind, but as his eyes finally adjusted he realized there was simply nothing to see. A dark room, perfectly square, built of those rough-cut stone blocks; if he had to guess it by eye, six feet by six feet exactly. His horns just barely missed brushing the ceiling, six feet overhead.

Nothing else in the room. No doors, or windows, or cracks for air to seep in, or sources of light. No enemies, or friends, or jailers -- no one and nothing at all.

It was about then he started to panic.

"Hello?" he called out, aiming his voice up at the ceiling. He crossed the little room to the opposite wall and banged on it with one fist. The stone absorbed the blow, giving back only a dull _thump_   of impact. "Hey! Anyone there?"

No answer.

He turned sharply and crossed the cell in the other direction, pounding on the wall there. "Hey! You mangy wizard fucker! Lemme out of here, right now, or I'll tie your balls in a knot while you're still wearing them!" he yelled.

No answer.

He threw himself against the wall, feeling along every block searching for a crack, a lever, a hidden door, something that would let him _out of here;_ pounding on the stone, scraping his hands along the cracks until the edges of his nails bled, pressing his ear frantically against the stone to listen for some hollow echo or _click_   that might signal a way out.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Just the darkness, and the silence, and the stone pressing down on him from above, filling his lungs, crushing him --

_Nothing._

After a time -- he wasn't quite sure how long -- he pulled himself back with a gasp, forcing his panic to the back of his throat where he could swallow it down. All right, _all right,_   he'd triggered some kind of magical trap. He'd stumbled on weirder things in his time adventuring. It could have been worse; at least his little cell wasn't filling up with water, or lava, or flesh-eating slimes. He'd just… been put in time-out, that was all.

But the others were still out there. They must have seen him disappear, they must have known what had happened. And while he wished with all his heart, every fiber of his being that he could be out there (in the light and the sound and the _air)_ helping them, he had to be sure that they could defeat this guy without him. They'd defeat the wizard, and figure out how to reverse the spell, and then he'd be back. All he had to do was wait.

They'd figure it out. They would. They had Jester, and whatever Fjord was, and they had Caleb, the cleverest man Molly had ever met. Between the lot of them, they'd figure it out. He just had to be patient and wait.

Eventually he sat down in a corner and pulled his knees up to his chest. And waited.

 

* * *

 

 

The spellcaster burned. 

He hadn't wanted to do it. They hadn’t _meant_   for this to happen; their original plan had been to take the man alive, force him to help them get to the bottom of this smuggling ring. But battling their way through the small army of minions in his tower had worn down their reserves and the hair-raising fight with the wizard had taken the rest of them. They were all out of spells, all taking hits.

Molly gone, who knew where. When the tiefling had vanished Yasha rushed the wizard headlong and was taken down by an electric shield that triggered on her attack, and it had been all Jester could do to get her heart beating again. Nott had been caught in some kind of crystalline field that slowed her to a crawl, Beau swarmed under by a dozen of the elemental summons, they were out of options, they were out of _time._   In desperation Caleb had fallen back on his first school, reached for the fire that _every time_ he swore he would never use again, and he had burned the man from the bones outward.

It wasn't so much the fire itself that was the problem, that took him by the throat and dragged him back in time. It was the smell. Raven Queen knew there was no other smell in the world quite like it, like pork left too long over a fire, mixed with charred cloth and burning hair --

"Caleb, Caleb come on," Nott pleaded with him, tugging at his sleeve. "You can't go away now, we have to figure out what happened to Molly."

The words seemed to drift into his consciousness slowly, like snowflakes settling out of a heavy gray sky. With difficulty he stirred himself, dragging his eyes away from the crumbled burning husk that had been a man, and turned around.

Where the first thing he saw was Beau, hovering at his elbow with her hand drawn back for a strike. He yelped. "Beauregard, what--?!"

"You need me to slap you?" Beau offered. "That's how Molly does it. Because I can totally slap you if that will help."

"No, thank you, that will not be necessary," he sighed, steadying somewhat with the familiar back-and-forth.

"Well I hope not, 'cause I'm sure not gonna kiss you," Beau said.

"I can kiss him!" Jester called out helpfully.

Nott growled. "No one is slapping Caleb, okay? Or kissing him!"

"Seriously though," and Fjord cut through the banter, "Caleb, can you take a look at this thing and figure out what happened? Can't make heads nor tails of it myself."

The last of the flames faded from Caleb's vision as he refocused on the new problem. He crouched down next to the little iron ball, muttering to himself as he made the gestures for Detect Magic.  Blue light bloomed in his vision, lighting up the orb in front of his eyes, then faded to a dim background glow. He looked up and frowned. "Did anyone else touch this?" he said.

Everyone shook their head except Nott, who shuffled her feet. "Um, I might have kicked it during the fight," she said.

"Whatever it does, it's not active now," Caleb said. He picked it up and held it in one hand while he dug around in his component pouch for an owl feather. The orb was icy cold, seeming to leach heat straight through the layers of fabric swathing his hands. He brushed the owl feather against the tips of his hands, and let it go as it shriveled into ash and disappeared.

Light bloomed once more, drawing delicate sigils through the air; two or three different _colors_   of light overlapping and overwriting each other in a confusing jumble. He shook his head in an effort to clear it, trying to pick out the different spells by eye.

"The orb itself is only a link, a key," he said, sitting back and frowning at it. "Touching it activates it, but it maintains a passive connection after that. I am not sure where the other end of the connection goes; I have never seen this exact wavelength before. I think it goes to another plane… no," he corrected himself, bringing it closer to study. "A pocket dimension. Not unlike your haversack, Jester. Wizards often use little spaces like these to store things… or imprison people."

"So Molly's in a, a pocket dimension?" Jester's nose scrunched up. "How do we get him _back,_ though?"

Caleb shook his head. "I am not sure," he said. "Like I said, I have never seen this exact device before. Usually there is a keyword to end the spell, or some other signal or trigger."

"It might be best to ask the man himself," Fjord said, jerking his head over at the smoldering remains of the spellcaster. "Have you got your spell for askin' questions of dead people, Jester?"

She shook her head, looking woeful. "I am out of magic," she said. " _Sorry._ But Yasha would have, if I didn't…"

"Don't worry 'bout it," Fjord said.

With that idea exhausted the conversation hung for a moment, each of them searching their repertoire for something that might help and coming up empty. They were all _tired,_   this fight having gone on for far too long already, and they had so little left to give. Yasha was barely conscious, Nott was staunching a bleeding cut on her arm that Jester didn't have the energy left to heal. Beau leaned on her staff to keep herself standing, and Caleb… well, his thoughts always moved slowly when he came back from one of his fits, like flies through honey.

Fjord took a deep breath. "Maybe the best plan is to take this back to town. There's plenty of scholars and spellcasters there we can take the orb to, ask them their expert opinion. And we could all do with a rest and refuel."

Heads began to nod among the rest of the Mighty Nein, Yasha and Jester's more reluctant than the others. A night's rest and a chance to study the question was an attractive prospect.

Much to his surprise Caleb shook his head forcefully. _"_ No _,"_ he said. "We do not know what conditions are like in this little dimension. And there is another spell on this device, one I do not recognize, and that worries me. I think the answers to this question are here in among the spellcaster's notes. I don't want to leave until I understand this."

Beau groaned and Jester drooped; they were all exhausted, and Caleb was committing them to several more hours of grueling work before they got a break. Only Yasha stood still as stone, staring at the orb intensely.

Nott took a deep breath and came over to Caleb's side, putting her small hand on his shoulder. "If that's what you think, Caleb, I'll help you," Nott said stoutly, taking Caleb's side as she always did.

He gave her a small, distracted smile. "Thank you, my friend," he said. "Could you all, look in the scholar's notes for things written in his hand? That is anything that matches, ah," he pulled over one book and flipped through it, then held up the page for examination. "Anything that matches _this_   handwriting."

"Right," Nott said, taking the page from him as her eyes moved over it intently. "On it."

The rest of them sighed and began to drift apart, sitting to take out food and water from the haversack or sifting through the wreckage of the tower room for possible valuables. Jester perused a shelf of books, running one finger along the titles before sighing in disappointment. "There's nothing _good_ here," she complained.

"I beg to differ," Caleb said without taking his eyes from the page. "I spotted several valuable texts in his library."

Jester rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean Caleb, there's nothing _fun_   to read," she said. "No adventures, no romances, no smutty books at _all._   Not even those stuffy historical novels you like that you pretend aren't smutty but _totally_   are, just in a highbrow way."

"Edubation," Beau snickered. "God, that's exactly the sort of thing professor crispy fried chicken here'd probably have in his library."

"Beau, a man just died," Fjord chided her. "Can't you at least give the dead the respect of usin' their proper name?"

"What? No! He tried to kill us! He sicced a bunch of fire things on it! He vanished Molly! He was selling a bunch of weapons to the country that's trying to conquer us!" Beau protested, before adding sheepishly. "And I'll be completely honest, I wasn't listening to that part of the briefing where the lawmaster said his name."

Fjord shook his head, but couldn't really argue since he hadn't been listening either.

"Ooh, Caleb!" Nott swarmed down from a high shelf, a book clutched close to her chest. She ran back over to Caleb, holding the book open to one page and pointing it out to him excitedly. "I think this is a good one! Look. This part reminds me of that chapter you have in _your_   spellbook, you know, the bits about," she cleared her throat and leaned in with a loud, hoarse whisper, " _time magic."_

The wizard took the book from her with a frown, switching his attention over from the first book with some effort. "Good find, thank you Nott," he said. "Are there, were there any others with this same binding up there?"

"I didn't see any but I'll check," she said and valiantly ran off again. Caleb turned a page and was immediately lost to the world.

"Maybe he shipped all the _good_   books to Xhorhas already," Jester said, picking up the conversation. "Do they read smutty books in Xhorhas, Yasha? Do they _write_ smutty books there? Do they import them from other countries or is that, like, _taboo?"_

"What? I… honestly they might, I don't know," Yasha said. It was clear that she was upset and distracted, most of her attention still on her missing friend. "We didn't have a lot of books in my village, but maybe in the cities, I don't know."

Caleb suddenly burst into a vicious spate of swearing, making them all jump and stare. With the exception of Nott none of them had ever heard the quiet wizard express such profanity before; the fact that it was in Zemnian did nothing to  disguise the fervent emotion: anger, disgust, _fear._

"What? What is it?" Yasha demanded.

"That other spell, I figured out what that other spell does," Caleb said, words tripping over each other in his agitation. "I cannot believe I missed it, I am so _stupid --"_

"What spell?" Beau interrupted his stream of self-recrimination. "What's it do?"

"You were right Nott, you were right, it _was_  time magic that the man was working with," Caleb said, his neck bent at a painful angle, buried in the book. "That other spell, it is an _accelerant,_ he must have used it for his experiments, to finish there in a fraction of real time. The chronometric ratio is absurd, this is incredibly irresponsible --"

"Caleb, what are you saying?" Fjord interrupted him. "Simple words, for the rest of us. What's this other spell doing?"

Caleb took a deep breath, cutting off his outpouring of words. "I am saying," he enunciated clearly, "that time is moving much faster where Mollymauk is than it is here. Ten to one, perhaps, or it may be as much as a hundred to one. For every minute that passes here, it is an _hour_ \-- or more -- in the place that Molly is trapped."

Fjord blanched. Jester gasped, hands flying up to her mouth. "We do not have time to take this into town," Caleb continued. "We must get him out of there _now._   If we wait too long, then Molly will die."

* * *

 

~tbc...


	2. Chapter 2

 

"We must get him out of there _now._   If we wait too long, then Molly will die."

The Mighty Nein stood stunned by Caleb's dire pronouncement. Yasha was the first to move. She let out a broken, feral noise -- almost a growl -- and shifted into a ready stance, sweeping the Magician's Judge from her back. " _I_ will free him from this thing," she snarled, and raised her sword to strike at the orb.

 _"Nein!"_ Caleb actually moved forward, partially covering the globe, blocking Yasha's swing -- more than Nott ever would have dared to do, getting in the path of that wicked sword. "You must not. The orb is not actually the prison, do you understand? It is only the key, the link. Breaking it will not free him -- but it might trap him there forever, with no hope of reaching him again."

"Okay, then what are we going to do?" Fjord asked, moving forward to stand between the aasimar and Caleb. "I don't think me or Jester have much they can do for this…" He looked over at the cleric who shook her head, whites showing all around the lilac of her eyes. "Caleb, can you reverse the spell somehow?"

"I - I…" Caleb trailed off, staring down at the orb in his hands. He was beginning to panic, chest heaving as the air seemed to desert him, as all the things that could go wrong skidded into his thoughts and begin to overrun each other in a pile. "I, I cannot do this, I do not know this spell! I -- I don't know that there is even a spell that will do this --"

"You can come up with something, can't you?" Beau demanded. "You have to at least try!"

"You've _got_ to!" Jester joined her voice to the chorus, and Yasha added in, "Help my friend, _please!"_

"You don't understand! This is something that takes wizards -- _real_   wizards, Empire wizards with laboratories and libraries and support staff -- months, _years_   to put together! I cannot -- I don't know how --" His words choked off as the panic rose up in his throat. This was exactly what he never wanted, for people to _depend on him,_   he'd tried so hard to keep anyone from needing him and now this was it, Molly was going to die, he was going to die because Caleb was too worthless and too pathetic to help him --

"Caleb." Nott was in front of him suddenly, his own hands caught in her large goblin hands. She was so much smaller than him, but his hands were only a little bit bigger than hers. The expression on her face was serious, almost grim, but there was a light glowing at the back of her eyes that he could not bear to meet. "Caleb, listen to me."

He turned his face away so that he wasn't looking directly looking at her, but he listened. He always listened to her.

"You are the smartest man I know." He tried to protest and she held up one finger to stop him. "You are. You know more about magic and how it works than any ten Empire wizards. Everything that you need to figure out and cast this spell is here in this lab. All his notes, all his ingredients are in one spot. You just have to put them together, and then you can do it. We'll all help out. I know that you're capable of this Caleb, I know it. I _believe_   in you."

He made himself breathe. One deep breath, then another, Nott's hands putting pressure on his. "We don't have time for me to freak out," he muttered. "We don't have time to waste on me --"

"You can have a minute," Nott told him sternly. "Tell us what you need, Caleb. We'll make sure you get it."

He looked up at her, around at the rest of them. The sight of their earnest, worried faces made the burdens seem a little lighter, if he could divide the weight a little bit among them. He could ask them for help and they would help him. For Molly's sake if not for his own. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to assemble all his thoughts in order.

"I need space to work," he said at last. "This whole area of the floor, I need it cleared and swept, I will need to be able to draw on it."

"I can do that!" Jester cried, and seized a piece of broken furniture to heave it to the side.

Caleb continued. "I need a notebook, and ink, and graph paper if he has it. Incense too, and straight edges. Nott, Beau." He looked up at them. "Go through his library. Find anything you possibly can in his handwriting and bring it here. Also I need you to look for certain books: _The Eternal Boundary, The Guardian's Guide to the Ethereal Plane, The Infinite Staircase._ If he was working with planar mechanics he must have at least one of these books in his library, perhaps more. Anything you can find by Archmage Cordell, Archmage Donovan, or Grand Haruspex Mariatus. Anything at all that seems to be written in either Elemental or Celestial."

"Got it," Beau said, looking daunted but determined, her jaw set to a stubborn thrust. Nott nodded so hard her head looked like it was on a string and took off towards the library.

He took a breath. "Yasha," he said, and managed to catch her frozen attention. "I'm going to need gemstones. They are likely here somewhere, but they won't be in plain sight. Go through his laboratory and his study and look for hiding places, false panels, illusory walls, anything like that. Anything you find there -- even if it's not gems -- bring to me; that's likely to be the most valuable and powerful items."

Yasha nodded wordlessly and stood up, hand drifting to the hilt of her sword as she strode off towards the wizard's private sanctum. The chance to take the place apart to the foundations would probably make her feel better, Caleb figured, after what the man had done to her friend.

Fjord looked around. Everyone was scrambling to obey Caleb, following his directions to scatter on different tasks. Fjord couldn't recall when he'd ever seen wizard so assertive, so commanding -- usually Caleb would rather defer to the authority of almost anyone else, drift to the edge of the group rather than dissent.

But he wasn't here to fight Caleb for control. It was clear that this was Caleb's element, his field of expertise, and he knew better than any of the rest of them what needed to be done. It wasn't Fjord's job to control him, but to support him in whatever he needed to do. He took a deep breath and stepped forward. "What can I do to help, Caleb?" he asked, putting himself at the other man's disposal.

Caleb glanced up at him, wheels turning behind those icy blue eyes, a frown tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Nothing," he said.

"Look," Fjord started. "I don't have as much book-learning as some, but I can at least help --"

"No, no," Caleb interrupted, shaking his head. "That was not what I meant. What you can do now, Fjord, is rest."

He blinked. "Rest?" he said, his voice tripping up in incredulity. "At a time like this? When Molly's --"

"Yes, _now,"_   Caleb interrupted. "Because even if I can put together the spell to get him back, I do not have enough power left to cast it. Someone else will need to supply the magic to trigger the spell, and Jester and I are worn out. We are useless until tomorrow, until we have a full night's rest. But _you_ \-- you can be ready in an hour."

Fjord nodded slowly, Caleb's implacable logic settling like a lead weight in his stomach. "I… right. I'll… it won't be easy, tryin' to sleep when all this is going on…"

"I know," Caleb said. "But it's something only you can do. Please, Fjord."

"Right," Fjord said with a sigh. He forced his misgivings aside, pushed down the stomach-churning guilt at the thought that he might be lying down on the job when his teammate and his friend needed him.

Finding a quiet place in the frantic library, getting his head down in a place of quiet -- it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. But he was a sailor, and sailors learned to take their rest wherever they found it.

 

* * *

 

 

Nott brought him another book, setting it in the pile with a thump that blew dust across the floor. "This one is by that archmage you wanted, Cordovan," she announced. "It's got lots of tables in the back, I think it's a good one!"

"Ah, good, _danke,"_   Caleb muttered. He glanced up at her with a brief smile before returning to his work, his eyes sharpening with that unmatchable focus.

She lingered for a moment watching him, still catching her breath after dragging the heavy tome up that many stairs. Despite her worry for Mollymauk it gave her a warm glow to see him at work, his graphite-stained fingers flying over the pages and his hair falling in his face. He was working so hard, and in that moment she was convinced he could do anything. And for his friends he _would_   do anything, and that made her glad.

But time was passing fast, the grains of sand trickling down in the hourglass, and she couldn't help but do the math in her head. Ten to one, Caleb had said, or even a hundred to one -- it didn't seem like that long up here, but the minutes were beginning to stack up. They had to hurry, but try as she might she couldn't see any other way for the rest of them to contribute. It really was all on Caleb and he was already working as fast as he could.

"Do you think he's…" Nott hesitated, not wanting to interrupt Caleb but unable to contain her worry. Her fingers itched for her flask, but she needed to stay focused for Caleb. For Molly. "Do you think he's all right? Wherever he is?"

"There is no way of knowing, I'm afraid," Caleb said as he worked, not looking up from the page. "It seems like a very small dimension that is attached to the spell, so there probably is not much there. We just have to trust that he would be able to take care of himself if he encountered any other denizens."

"Do you think he." She lowered her voice. "Do you think he knows about the time thing? Does he know that we're coming to get him? Or does he think we, does he think we just left him there?"

Caleb still didn't look up, but his fingers stilled for a moment and Nott kicked herself. "I'm sorry, I know I'm not helping, I should go --"

"No, you are not saying anything I have not already thought," Caleb said quietly as he resumed writing. "For your first question, whether he knows about the time spell, I doubt it. It would not be obvious from the inside.  As for the other… I do not know."

Nott shuddered to think of it, being cut off and lonely and thinking yourself abandoned. She knew all about being abandoned, and it was a cold drowning hurt that little else could match. "I could try to Message him?" she suggested hopefully. "Tell him that we are trying to get him back?"

Caleb gave a silent little sigh, she could see the way his chest heaved. "He is in another dimension right now. I do not think it will reach him."

"I could try, anyway," Nott said stubbornly. "Maybe if I put my hand on the orb?"

Caleb looked up and blinked, struck by the thought. "That might help," he allowed. "It is a magical link to the pocket dimension. Maybe it will work, maybe not."

"I'll try!"

Despite her brave pronouncement, Nott hesitated a moment with her hand hovering over the orb. What if it whisked her off like it had for Molly? Well… then the two of them would be together wherever it was, and Caleb could get them _both_   back. She took a decisive grip on the orb.

Nothing happened, and she let out a surreptitious relieved breath. She pulled out her copper wire and, not without a feeling of foolishness, tried her best to direct the spell into the orb she held.

"Molly, can you hear me?" she said. "It's us. We know you're stuck in another place right now and we're trying to get you out. Are you okay? You can reply to this message."

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't what she got: almost immediately a torrent of sound rushed back along to her along the wire, a cacophony of words and cries. She gasped, flinching as the sounds thudded into her ears. "Oh… o-oh no, that's…"

"What is it? Could you reach him?" Caleb looked up intently from his notebook.

She shook her head. "I th-think so, I can hear him, but… I can't understand him at all!" She tried to pick out individual words from the noise, but the sounds all jumbled together. "I think he might be speaking Infernal, or else… H-he's upset. Really, really upset and I think, he's not speaking too clearly."

Caleb frowned deeply, and returned the glower to his page. "Tell him about the time difference," he reminded her. "Tell him we are coming for him."

Not without reluctance, Nott raised the wire again. "Molly? Caleb says to tell you that there's something wrong with the time in the place you're in, that it's going much faster for you than for us. It's only been a couple minutes here, I don't know how long it's been for you. But we are getting you out, we are working as fast as we can! Just hold on! You can reply to this message."

She ran off to look for more books.

 

* * *

 

 

When Fjord woke up, groggy and slow, it was to a scene that had been completely transformed.

The space in the center of the room had been cleared as per Caleb's request, and the wizard now sat at the center of slowly growing piles on each side. Behind him and to his left was a stack of books; behind him and to his right was a smaller pile, these opened to certain pages or with others carefully marked. Yet more books were scattered at the base of the wall behind him, where they had apparently been tossed for not holding any useful information.

Another pile close to hand glinted in the tower's lights, a heap of gemstones of various sizes and colors, and yet another pile was a jumbled array of different ingredients that Fjord could hardly name. He recognized the incense Caleb used in his ritual to summon Frumpkin but also a paintbrush with a silver handle, miscellaneous lumps of chalk, and a strange forked metal rod that glinted a brassy color.

In front of him was a sheaf of papers and notebooks that made an inch-deep pile and Caleb was bent intently over the papers, making careful notations with a stick of graphite. Even as Fjord watched Beau dashed up with book in hand, dropped it onto the bigger stack of books then dashed away again. Without looking Caleb reached behind him and pulled the book to him, opened it up and fanned through the pages rapidly, then snapped it shut and chucked it over his shoulder to join the others in exile.

Fjord got himself up and stumbled forward, his mind gradually clearing with the movement and the time awake.

"Fjord," Caleb said, glancing up at his approach and then flicking his eyes back to his paper. "Are you rested?"

He considered the question, jaw cracking in a yawn as he cast his mind around for the power that usually flowed through him. He could feel it at the end of his arm where his hand would close around his sword, just a heartbeat away. "Rested enough," he said, then returned the questioning look. "What about you? How are you doing?"

"Almost ready," Caleb said, looking back down at the floor. "I need a length of iron chain. The girls are searching the tower now trying to find it for me. Then I can begin."

"How long will this take once you start?"

"Not long," Caleb answered. "I have to make sure everything is right before I begin. If I fuck this up, Molly will die."

No pressure or anything. Fjord looked Caleb over, trying not to show his concern too obviously. With a bit of rest under his own belt it was obvious how badly the others were in need of the same, Caleb especially. The bags under his eyes were nearly bruiselike in color, his cheeks were gaunt, and his hands where he put the pen to paper were shaking.

"Are you gonna be all right?" Fjord said, dropping his voice low.

Caleb gave a little shrug without looking up. "I'll finish this," he said. "And hope I have not made a mistake."

"Okay," Fjord said, because what else was there to say? He stepped back, trying to find a place on the periphery of the room where he wouldn't get in the way, and waited.

True to his word, Caleb continued working in his notebook for only a few minutes more before he stopped and set the graphite aside, then got on his hands and knees and began clearing the piles of debris from around him. The only thing he kept to hand was the ink and the silver-handled brush which he used to begin drawing a circle on the stone floor, referring to the designs in his notebook.

The circle on the floor grew rapidly, the first perfect circles quickly filling up with smaller lines and intersections, rows of scrawling runes and sigils incised along each line. He did it all freehanded, his hands nearly a blur as they wrote out the runes, and there was a near feverish glow on his face as he worked.

He drew at a nearly frenetic pace, but the circle was so large and complex that it still took long minutes for it to slowly creep out to its full size. The iron orb rested in the center of the design, encircled in a thick cloud of runic words; lines extended outwards like rays to connect with other circles and other scrolling words. Caleb set Molly's swords at two other points in the circle, forming an even triangle with the orb, so maybe it was some kind of attunement thing, Fjord wasn't sure.

Footsteps clattered in the stairwell outside and Nott and Jester burst back into the room, the cleric hugging a jumble of iron links to her chest. "We found them," she cried as she came in, "and you guys would not _believe_  some of the things this guy had in his dungeons, I haven't seen most of this stuff since I left home --"

Fjord made an urgent shushing gesture at Jester, looking nervously at Caleb; but Caleb hadn't lasted this long in the Mighty Nein without being able to largely tune out Jester's voice when he was trying to focus, and it didn't break his concentration. Jester stopped short, her mouth a round O of surprise as she took in the array on the floor.

"This looks _super_  complicated," she whispered, tip-toeing across the floor to join Fjord.

"Yeah," Fjord said uneasily, looking over the breadth of it in dismay. And Caleb wanted _him_  to be the one to cast this thing? He didn't even know what it was supposed to _do._  Maybe if he'd gotten a chance to attend the Soltryce Academy, maybe this was the sort of thing they taught you there... but it was all Marquesian to him.

But Caleb seemed to think that he could do it. "He knows what he's doin'," Fjord said and tried his best to project confidence.

"Caleb is very smart," Nott avowed under her breath. She'd repeated it so many times by now it almost sounded like a prayer.

The three of them settled down in the corner to wait. Yasha loomed against the wall with her mouth set tight and arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself. Jester shuffled along the wall until she could sit next to the pale woman, doing her best to offer comfort in company, but Yasha's gaze did not budge from the wizard at the center of the room.

"It's been more than an hour," Yasha said in her soft, intense way.

"We'll get Molly back, Yasha," Jester said with all the confidence she could muster. "We worked, like, _super_ fast. I'm sure it will be okay!"

Yasha looked away. "But we don't know how long it's been for him," she muttered. "How long is too long?"

"I'm sure Caleb will be done soon," Jester said desperately.

In the center of the circle Caleb sat back and tossed the last piece of chalk aside. He stepped with exaggerated care over the lines, not scuffing any of them, to crouch over the center of the array; drew his knife, and with a swift motion cut open his palm.

Nott gasped, but Caleb ignored her as he finished up using his blood to write the last few runes. He'd left this part for last because he could feel himself running dangerously close to the edge as it was, and couldn't afford to bleed himself of any more strength until he was almost done. The edges of his vision blurred and grayed as he wrote, but he ignored it and kept working.

At last it was finished. He nearly fell back on his heels and tipped his head back, inhaling deeply as he fought back waves of dizziness. "It's done," he croaked, to the breathlessly waiting audience.

It had been seventy-four minutes since Molly had disappeared from the Tower.

Nott scurried forward but knew well enough to stop at the edge of the sigil, careful not to cross the invisible boundary as she hovered, hands held out towards him. Caleb wrapped a few stray bandages around the cut on his hand and stepped carefully across the circles to the edge of the array. Once he was over the last line, he nearly collapsed onto the floor. "Fjord," he said, turning to the half-orc. "It's up to you."

Fjord swallowed hard, but nerved himself up to it and stepped forward. "What do I need to do?" he asked, unable to keep just the edge of nervousness out of his voice. "I'm not too familiar with this kind'o magic..."

"You don't need to be," Caleb assured him. "Just stand in the clear space -- there -- and channel magic. The spell will pick it up and do the rest."

Fjord nodded and tip-toed into the circle, his muscular form almost comical in how carefully he moved so as not to disturb anything. He found the clear space Caleb had mentioned and stepped into it, feeling a strange tingle running over his skin as he positioned himself near the center.

No time to dither. Minutes were ticking by and he wasn't going to get any more ready. He took a deep breath and tried to do what Caleb said, calling on his magic without really having a clear idea in mind of what spell he was going to be casting.

Instinctively he reached for his sword. It appeared in his hand in a puff of mist, water pooling on the barnacles encrusting the handle and running down the blade. Tendrils of sea-green energy twisted about it, and almost as soon as they appeared they twisted away and were sucked into the waiting circle.

The spell fired up with a roar. Light raced along the lines, firing up a different color with each different circle they touched. When they closed the circuit along the outside of the array of circles they smoothed out, washing back over themselves to project a glow a foot upwards from the floor.

The gemstones that had been placed around the circle began to glow with their own inner light; the iron orb and Molly's swords began to shimmer. The length of iron chain leapt into the air as though pulled by an invisible anchor, rattling as it ran and twisted and formed a circle in the middle of the air. The space inside the circle clouded over, filling up with a haze that quickly deepened to opaque darkness. The clouds began to shift, changing from one hue to another and from dark to light as the search began.

Caleb watched as each stage of the spell kicked in with his nails digging into his palms, in agony of worry and anticipation. There was nothing he could do _now_  to affect the outcome, but he still found himself leaning forward and barely daring to breathe as the spell cast outwards from the Material Plane, searching the planes and dimensions around it for the target specified in the parameters of the spell. If he'd messed up the calculations -- if he'd guessed wrong about where Molly was being held -- if he'd made a mistake in any point of the transcription, well, the best case scenario was that the spell would simply fail, and then Molly would die. Most of the _other_  scenarios involved explosions or unwanted guests summoned from planes he would really, much rather not have any contact with.

Nothing exploded. Yet. Fjord was still channeling magic, the water that sluiced off his blade leaping up into steam as it touched the stone floor and sizzled. His eyes were fixed on the growing darkness inside the portal, pupils dilated wide. The haze went abruptly dark, showing the interior of a dark room with no lights. Only the faintest light spilled from their world into the dimension beyond, illuminating rough, square blocks of stone and the faintest shadowed silhouette of a humanoid.

Then Fjord stirred, brought his sword up in an upright salute against his chest, and leaned his forehead against the naked blade. "Mollymauk Tealeaf!" he said in a loud, clear voice -- and the circle rang like a bell.

The light flared and then died. The iron orb cracked in half, falling in two pieces against the floor. The chain circle fell to the floor with a rattle as the force that had been animating it vanished.

And sitting in the middle of the chain circle, curled into a tight ball and looking much worse for the wear, was a purple-skinned tiefling dressed in a gaudy red coat.

Relief hit Caleb with the force of a blow, and the frenetic tension that had been driving him for the past hour guttered and went out like the light of the spell. He sank back against the floor and let his vision go grey, the world fading out around him.

\---

"Molly!" Jester cried, pouncing on her fellow tiefling as soon as the light died. Fjord stumbled back a step feeling uncommonly winded; his magic was all but out, even though he'd only cast the one spell. He didn't think they needed the circle anymore, so he let his feet scuff over the lines as he stepped forward to bend over Molly.

"Molly?" he said cautiously, but got no more response than Jester had. He frowned as he stooped closer, trying to figure out what was wrong with his friend. He reached out and slid his fingers along Molly's neck, feeling for a pulse, and exhaled hard with relief when he felt one. "He's alive," he reported, and heard the faint moans of relief and cries of joy from the others.

He was alive. But… something was wrong. Molly's skin was dry and papery and crimped under the pressure of his fingers instead of springing back elastically. His pulse was fast and thready, his breathing  rapid and shallow, and he wasn't responding at all to Fjord's touch.

His fingers came back sticky with blood. He hadn't picked up on it at first -- the tiefling was coated with a layer of grime that Caleb would have been proud of -- but Molly was _covered_ with blood, practically coated in it. They'd been fighting hard towards the end there, but Molly hadn't been anything like this beat up when he'd disappeared into the sphere. Jester made a distressed noise as she checked him over and the extent of the mess was revealed. "What happened?" she cried. "Were there bad guys in the other world that you had to fight?!"

Fjord wasn't so sure. It was hard to see under the layer of blood and dirt, but he didn't see any deep wounds. What he did see was dozens and dozens of little cuts and wide raw patches where skin had been scraped against something rough.

"I don't know what to do," Jester whispered, tears standing in her eyes. "I don't have any spells left -- I can't heal him! We don't have any potions left, I -- I can't --"

"It looks worse than it is, Jes," Fjord assured her. "I don't think it's magic he needs most of all right now. He needs water, he's parched. After that, food maybe. I don't think he's had anything to eat or drink in -- a while."

"Give him to me," Yasha said, her tone brooking no argument. Fjord stepped back and surrendered Molly to her readily; they needed to move him out of here, and he certainly wasn't strong enough to carry Molly down all those stairs.

Molly offered no resistance as he was moved, his head lolling like a ragdoll as he slumped in Yasha's grasp. Fjord expected him to be unconscious, but as his head turned he caught a line of red from under Molly's eyelids. His eyes were open, but focused on nothing, seeing nothing. _Empty._

"How long was he _in_ there?" Nott said uneasily.

"Seventy-nine minutes," Caleb mumbled from somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. When everyone's attention shifted to him, he raised his head and tried to speak a little more clearly. "Sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour. A minute out here was an hour down there. Seventy-nine hours from then until now."

"Seventy-nine hours?" Nott echoed, aghast. Everyone did the necessary mental arithmetic. "But that's more than…"

"Three _days?"_ Jester cried out, dismayed.

"Three days," Yasha said hollowly, clutching Molly to her chest. "Without food or water. Without light. Alone."

  


* * *

 

 

~tbc...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D&D rules I already know I'm breaking:  
> -I don't know whether there is a magic item that can do exactly what the one in the story did, but if there isn't there ought to be, since I can think of at least three other magic items or traps that do something almost like it off the top of my head.
> 
> -There's also no spell I know of that can fuck with time like this, but I really don't care. It's experimental.
> 
> -Message can't reach between planes. Sending can, but that would require Jester to use a spell slot, and I wanted her to be out of spell slots (no Speak With Dead and no healing.)
> 
> -There's not really a mechanism to let a second caster trigger a spell like this; what Caleb's essentially doing is casting the spell as a ritual, at which point it should not matter that he's out of spell slots. But I wanted to give Fjord a role in the plan and I wanted to make use of that fast-recharging warlock magic, since the time pressure was such a big part of the story.
> 
> -There's also not a mechanism for a caster to learn/create a new spell in an hour even if he really, really wants to, but Caleb Is Very Smart.


	3. Chapter 3

 

There were voices again, and light. Somewhere.

He was at the bottom of a deep black pit, the walls dark stone. He'd been there for a very long time. He couldn't remember how long. Now the top of the sky had come off and far away above him there were voices and light again. He could see colors, could see the faces of his friends, heard their voices echoing down the walls of the pit as they called to him, but he could not reach them. As beautiful as the light was, it was too far away to touch.

They called him and reached for him, but he couldn't answer. And he didn't know how to tell them that he was too far down in the pit to reach back.

 

* * *

 

 

  _First things first,_   Fjord had said, his solid pragmatism a relief as always. _He needs water._   But saying turned out to be easier than doing.

Mollymauk would not drink. They could pour a little water into his mouth but he would not swallow, and too much and he'd start to choke. It was actually Beau who suggested another way: soak a piece of cloth in water and put it in his mouth, let him take what he needed at his own pace. That seemed to work but it was painfully slow. Food was going to have to wait until he was more responsive, they decided. All of their food on hand was travel rations, nothing remotely soft or suitable for convalescent eaters.

Second thing second. They needed to get out of this tower and back to a place of real safety. It didn't take a genius to recognize that staying in the place where the spellcaster had trapped him, the walls and ceiling so similar to the little cell they'd glimpsed through the window, would be nothing but bad for him. They'd gathered up all their gear and supplies and the loot that they'd managed to find -- the gemstones that hadn't shattered during Caleb's spell, the gold Yasha had uncovered from the secret stash, the books that Caleb hadn't thrown at the wall -- and trudge the long and weary way back down the winding staircase and out the hidden entrance.

Yasha had carried Molly the whole way, refusing to relinquish her grasp on him -- not that any of them save perhaps Jester could have moved him any distance. The normally cheerful blue tiefling trudged on ahead with an unaccustomed droop to her tail, clearly weighed down by her inability to help her friend.

It was nearing dark outside, the sun already swallowed up by a rising bank of clouds coming up from the west. The wind was sharp, tugging at their clothes and hair and skin, and Yasha took one look at the building cloudheads and then refused to look again, hunching her shoulders and setting her chin with a mulish stubbornness as she strode on towards town.

The last of the light had not quite faded by the time they made town and the streets were well-lit; they made their way back to The Grim & Malkin Inn without encountering trouble in the streets. By the time they made it inside every one of the party was ready to collapse onto the nearest padded surface and not rise again; they'd all been run down past their reserves even before the current trouble with Molly.

Caleb had hoped that removing the tiefling from the stone tower would revive him, but no such luck -- his eyes remained open but unfocused, his limbs loose. They kept the cloth in his mouth soaked with water, but it was hard to tell whether that was helping. At least, he hoped, Molly wasn't getting any worse.

Beau left to tell the Lawmaster that the man they'd been sent to find was dealt with. They'd been charged to apprehend him, not kill him, and Caleb knew the authorities would not be happy with this turn of events -- but he didn't care. Not now. The worst that would happen was they wouldn't get paid, and money wasn't their concern right now.

Fjord left to buy supplies, an unusual step given how much the half-orc usually hated shopping -- but it needed to be done and right now he was the most presentable of the lot of them. Fjord always did what needed doing, Caleb reflected. It was something he'd always admired about the man.

Nott had disappeared as soon as they'd reached the inn, he didn't know where but he trusted that she had good reason. That left Yasha, Jester, and himself to look after Molly -- or rather Yasha and Jester with himself hovering by the door and feeling useless as the other two helped his friend where he could not.

Before they could help treat Molly's wounds they needed to be able to get a good look at Molly's wounds. The inn's towels would likely never be the same, but the coating of dirt and drying blood was slowly stripped away as a basin of lukewarm water turned an ominous, rusty red.

Fjord's assessment that _it looks worse than it is_   was not without merit.  For all the blood none of the wounds were very deep,  and the worst were bleeding only sluggishly. But the sheer breadth of them was frightening. All over his back and shoulders, his knees and chest and feet, were scrapes and abrasions like -- like he had flung himself against rough, unyielding surfaces again and again, uncaring of the damage the stone was doing to his flesh. Even his horns were bashed about, the surface enamel gouged and several pieces of jewelry missing.

But worst of all were his hands and arms. Cuts ran all up and down his arms, following the pattern of cuts he'd usually make with his blade to activate his rites but done much more messily, ragged nail marks instead of neat cuts from a blade. His hands -- his hands looked like dog meat, more red than purple, hardly a square inch of skin left on them. His claws were splintered, his fingers worn raw.

Caleb averted his eyes when he could not stand to see any more, but his sense of duty kept him in place, useless except to fetch more water from downstairs or the healing kit from Beau's pack. _Useless,_   for all his mighty mind and high learning. It did not make him feel better that with her spells exhausted, Jester was feeling just as useless.

Thunder rumbled as the hour ticked on towards midnight, and Yasha's shoulders hitched. She ducked her head and went on wrapping bandages around Molly's shredded forearm.

"Will you have to go?" Jester mumbled.

"He is calling me," Yasha said with great reluctance, each word sounding dragged out of her. Her jaw squared. "But He can wait. Molly needs me more, now."

"If you must go, then you must go," Caleb said. The words dropped harshly into the quiet room and Yasha flinched, but Caleb had a better idea than some of the consequences that could come of defying too powerful of a patron. He tried to make his next words more diplomatic. "We will not leave Mollymauk. He will be protected and cared for with us."

"Cared for?" Yasha shot back. "What do you know of caring for him when he's lost in his own head? You didn't know him in the circus, _none_   of you do. Are you going to taunt him, or toss him aside when he's more trouble than he's worth to you?"

"Yasha!" Jester protested, her voice full of hurt. Reluctantly Yasha dragged her gaze back up to Jester's face, seeing the tears shimmering in her eyes. "We _wouldn't._   He's our friend and we'll help him however he needs."

Yasha wavered. Caleb could tell that the call was hard to resist, there was a look of agony in her eyes as she found herself torn between love and duty. He ventured to say, "I brought him back once, did I not?"

That struck, and she took her time considering it. At last, with great reluctance she stood up, as always seeming to take up more space in a room than her physical presence could account for. "When he wakes up," she said, her voice like steel on the _when._   "If I'm not back when he wakes up, tell him I love him. Tell him -- I didn't want to go."

"I'll tell him, I promise," Jester said earnestly.

A small smile twitched Yasha's lips. "Pinky swear?" she murmured.

"Pinky swear!" Jester returned enthusiastically, and the two women linked their hands in a solemn promise.

"Just don't leave him alone," Yasha said as she gathered her gear to her, the sword slung over her back. "And don't let him be in the dark."

Caleb nodded. He'd figured some source of light might be necessary, however difficult it made finding sleep for the rest of them. "He won't be."

Yasha hesitated a moment more, then stepped towards the door. She stopped for a moment at the door, brushing against the lintel opposite from Caleb, and pinned him with an intense, mismatched gaze.

"Thank you," she said quietly, her voice a low rumble in her chest that sounded like the distant thunder. "For bringing him back."

Caleb nodded, feeling uncertain and intimidated even in the face of her quiet gratitude. _"_ _Keine Ursache,"_ he muttered. "I -- I know how important he is to you."

Yasha nodded. "He's my friend," she said. To his astonishment, she reached out and touched the side of his face, her fingers rough against the edge of his beard. "You're my friend, too."

She turned and left.

 

* * *

 

 

With Yasha gone Caleb moved in to help Jester with the rest of the wounds. Mostly he passed her water and cloth when she asked for them, washing the dirt and grime and wrapping them in gauze.

"Caleb?" Jester said quietly, her eyes trained on her fellow tiefling as she tied a neat little bow in the bandage. "What hurt Molly?"

He cleared his throat. "I think…" He coughed. "I think he did this to himself, Jester."

"But… but I know he has to cut himself to do his magic, but we saw the little room he was in, there was nothing there to fight! Why would he…"

Caleb looked at her, at a loss for what to say. He saw it in the tremor of her chin, the brightness around the edges of her eyes: she already knew the answer, but she didn't want it to be true. She was hoping he would tell her another truth.

But he had no better truth to offer. He sighed. "Solitary confinement can be… people are not meant to be alone and confined for long periods of time," he said. "And especially not… in the dark. All three of those things together… it hurts people in ways beyond their body. Sometimes in strange ways. Some people see hallucinations, or hear voices. Some withdraw from the world, others… attack anything around them, and if nothing else is around, they attack themselves."

"But it was only three days!" Jester protested. "It wasn't _that_   long!"

"It does not take long." Caleb stared at the floor, unable to meet her gaze. She did not know, she did not know but he could not help the conviction that she could somehow read the truth in his face.  "And it has nothing to do with how strong… a person is. Everyone breaks, sooner or later, in the dark. Some… sometimes in less than a week, yes. Sometimes in three days. It leaves scars… maybe not visible ones, but scars that can last for years. Or forever."

Jester gasped. "Not _forever,_ " she begged. "Oh please Caleb, he'll get better, won't he? Molly's brave, he's strong, he can make it through anything, I know he can!"

He sighed. "Jester, please," he said. "I know you only want to help, but it would be better if you did not say things like… 'he is strong so he should be okay' or 'it wasn't that long' where he can hear them. Because if he is not okay, then he will be left thinking that he is… lacking for being hurt, on top of being hurt."

"I didn't mean it like that!" Jester protested, but she wilted. "I didn't mean…"

"I know you did not." Caleb rubbed a hand over his face. "I do not think that Molly has ever been comfortable with the dark, with being alone. No one is, but the things he has been through in the past… I think those experiences made this worse for him than it would have been for you or me."

Her eyes filled with tears, silver shimmering over violet and overflowing onto her blue cheeks. She whirled around and, with a sob,  ran out the door.

Great. Now he'd made Jester cry, on top of Molly being catatonic. "Good job, Widogast," he muttered to himself, and moved to take her place by the bed.

It still ached to look at Mollymauk when he was like this, though he made himself look anyway. So much of Molly's beauty was in his flamboyant personality, his eloquent expressions and his expressive voice, the way he moved and stood to take up more space than any one man should. It ached to see him silenced and still, to see him reduced, to see him brought low. He'd seen too many people in his life hollowed out that way, their inner spark smothered, gone somewhere in their heads far past any hope of retrieval. He'd almost been one of them not so long ago.

It hurt to see Molly hurting.  It felt wrong, like the desecration of a sacred shrine, like the wanton destruction of a beautiful piece of artwork. Anyone would think that, Caleb was sure. Even if they weren't in love with Mollymauk Tealeaf.

 

* * *

 

 

Fjord came back from his errand soaking wet from the rain and with a headache brought on from the stress of late-night shopping on top of the day they'd all had already. He'd managed to grab the most urgent items the party needed, repairs for the cart as well as medical supplies for Molly, but he hadn't been able to get healing potions at this hour. The best he'd been able to manage were restorative draughts -- for those recovering from a long illness, the apothecary assured him -- and wound salves. They wouldn't magically heal his injuries but they'd help soothe the pain and prevent infection, and maybe tomorrow Jester could do more. No one in the party was critically hurt so he hadn't pushed it; he had a feeling that no magic potions could cure what Molly had. That would take time, rest and care.

He ducked into the inn's stable to leave the bulkier supplies with their horses and stopped in his tracks when he heard a sob from the bed of the cart. "Jester?" he said, peering into the gloom and willing his eyes to adjust from the lights outside. "That you?"

A horned shape sat up in the cart, and Jester sniffled and blew her nose on her handkerchief. "Oh, Fjord," she said. She seemed about to say more, but huddled down on herself instead.

"Is Molly okay?" he said, alarmed by the thought that their friend might have taken a turn for the worse in the time he'd been gone.

"No," Jester said, but at the look on his face added hastily, "I mean, he's not any worse! He's not any better, either. He still won't talk or look at us or at anything and Caleb says that he might be hurt worse than any of us thought and I…"

She trailed off, huddling down into the cart. Fjord thought he could guess some of what went unspoken: she couldn't help him, and she felt responsible.

Fjord set all his packages aside, climbed into the cart bed and settled down beside her. He was wet but he was warm and maybe his presence would help soothe this hurt. "What's on your mind, Jester?" he said gently.

Jester sniffled again. "If Molly hadn't caught that evil ball..." she said. "It would have hit me instead."

Fjord thought back to the fateful moment in the fight. It had gone by pretty quick, but from his perspective it looked like Molly had snatched the missile out of the air on its way to Jester. "Most likely," he agreed.

"I wish he hadn't," Jester said, her voice thick. "It would have been better if it were me."

Screw his wet shirt. Fjord reached out and laid a careful arm over her shoulders. "Jes, he just wanted to protect you."

"I know! But it was so much worse for him than it would have been for me!" Jester burst out. "That other place, it was just a kind of room, right? I know all about being stuck in a room. I would have been all right!"

Fjord frowned. Jester hadn’t talked all that much about her childhood, but he did at least know about her room. "I don't think that was something you should have to go back to. Bein' imprisoned in any room, no matter how nice, all alone."

"But I wouldn't have been alone. The Traveler would be with me, and I would have had my sketchbook. I could have made light so I wouldn't have to be in the dark, and I could make food and water for myself too! I would have been okay!" She started crying again, tears trickling down her cheeks, flushed darker blue with the force of her emotions. "But Molly didn't have any of that!"

"He couldn't have known you'd be okay," Fjord pointed out. "None of us knew what that ball would do." She knew that as well as he did, but it didn't seem to console her. Fjord tried again. "You know a lot of shitty things have happened to... all of us, prob'ly more than you or I know. We don't get to ration out or trade around our bad experiences, to decide which of us is most suited or least deserving of this or that shitty thing. It's probably for the best we can't. All we can do is try to help each other as best we can."

"But..." Jester's chin crumpled. "But he went through hell because of me..."

"Now stop that," Fjord told her sternly, hugging his arm around her. "He went through three layers of hell because of that asshole wizard, and because he didn't want _you_ to go through it. It wasn't your fault, you hear me? You got nothing to feel guilty about."

Jester sniffled, leaned against him, then nodded.  


 

* * *

 

 

Nott returned, when she returned, through the window. Caleb heard the scratching and moved to undo the latch, but it turned out not to be necessary; the window cracked open and his goblin friend shimmied inside. She looked well; not that there had been any particular reason to worry, but Caleb was always more at ease when he had her in sight.

"Where did you go?" Caleb asked.

Nott looked faintly guilty. "I needed a drink," she said.

Caleb's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You always have a drink," he said. So much of their old day-to-day routine on the road had revolved around having alcohol on hand for Nott; all those old habits had pretty much stopped when she got her endless flask.

"I needed a different drink," Nott said. She sighed. "I just needed some space. That, everything that happened in the tower, that was. A lot."

"I understand," Caleb said softly.

Nott flashed him a small smile. "Yes, you would," she said. She tilted her head to the side. "If you need some time alone too, I can spell you."

Caleb sent a faintly haunted look over at Mollymauk. He hadn't moved, his eyes were still barely open but no one was home. "I should not leave him," he mumbled.

"He won't be alone," Nott said. "I can take care of him."

He shook his head. He had no doubt she could; she'd taken care of him enough times, including some when he had not been much better off than Molly was now. But it felt like it would be abandoning his post, somehow. He'd already let Molly go once, and he'd suffered for it. He wasn't willing to risk it again.

Nott climbed up on the foot of the bed, peering into his face. Her eyes were sharp, and he knew better than to try to hide from her. "I know that look, Caleb," she said sternly. "There's no reason for you to feel responsible for this."

"But I am responsible for this," he said.

"No. We did everything right," Nott insisted. "That bastard got Molly good _but that's not our fault._ We figured out what was wrong and we fixed it. No one could possibly have done it faster or better. We did _everything_ right, and it sucks that Molly got hurt anyway, but sometimes that's just how it is."

Caleb said nothing. Nott knew him too well. If she had said that _he_   had done everything right, he wouldn't have believed her. But by including herself in the statement, she'd made it so that he couldn't refute her.

"You know I'm right," Nott said, her voice a touch accusing.

Caleb shrugged. "You usually are," he said. "But I will stay with him, all the same."

Perhaps he was not responsible for Molly in the sense of being at fault. But he _did_  feel responsible, in that he had made it his job to bring Molly back and he felt like that job was not yet done. Molly wasn't back yet, his body might be here but his mind was still in that faraway dimension. The job wasn't _done_   yet.

And even if that hadn't been true -- if Molly had disappeared and reappeared spontaneously with no help from him -- he still felt responsible simply because he cared. There was no extracting Mollymauk Tealeaf from his heart now, however vigorously he might have tried before. He would not be able to rest easy until Molly was well.

Maybe Nott knew that too, or maybe she just knew him well enough to know when arguing was a waste of breath. "All right," she said.

A sharp series of knocks rattled the door. Caleb started to get up, but Jester had never waited on knocks and pushed the door open before the echoes had fully faded. Her eyes were a bit redder than normal, but her face was all smiles (if a bit freshly washed) as she hauled behind her enough bedding to nearly fill the hallway wall to wall. "Jester?" Caleb said, the only question he dared.

"Sleepover time!" Jester announced. She pushed into the room and tugged her bundle behind her, pillows squeezing and bursting back to their full size as they cleared the doorframe. Pillows, blankets, sheets, even a rolled futon… she was carrying enough padding with her to fill up the entire floorspace.

"What is this for?" Caleb asked, at a loss. Jester grinned and bounced a bit.

"Well, Molly shouldn't be left alone, right?" Jester said. "Yasha was _real_   sure about that, she made me _pinky swear._   So I figure, if being around other people helps Molly, then having _all_ of us sleep in here with Molly will help him _even more!"_

"I'm amenable," Fjord said, coming in behind Jester.

Caleb opened his mouth to tell Jester he didn't think it worked that way, then stopped. How was he to know whether it would work or not? And it was a harmless enough experiment. It would be no different than sleeping with them all out on the road, and it meant he could put his alarm spell around all of them in one go.

He closed his mouth. Shrugged. "I don't see why not," he said.

"Yay!" Jester cheered and leapt forward, bouncing on the mattress. "Pile on Molly!"

It took some shuffling to get them all arranged; the room wasn't particularly small, but six of them filled it to the edges. Jester cuddled up against Molly and Fjord took the outside of the bed; there was just about enough room for Caleb to fit on Molly's other side, Nott curled up like Frumpkin between them. Beau was happy enough to take the floor in front of the door, although she insisted they keep a clear enough path so that she could get up and give Molly more water in the night.

"Shouldn't we try to get some kinda food down him?" Fjord said, watching her tend to him carefully.

Beau shrugged. "Water's more important than food, at least for the next coupla days," she said. "If he's not up by tomorrow we can try him on some sugar water."

"You know a surprising amount about this, Beau," Caleb commented, watching her sure movements as she moved the tiefling's limbs around, gently turned his head. She reminded him a bit -- though he would never say this -- of the attendants at the asylum, although he had never been quite as bad off as Molly was now. That did not mean he had been paying attention to them however, or that he would know what to do in her place.

She stiffened slightly, then shrugged, trying to play it off as casual. "Oh, y'know," she said.  "Picked it up somewhere. It's a thing."

"Okay," Fjord said. Jester looked like she might push for an answer, but she didn't. Perhaps she was too tired.

They all lay down and arranged themselves for bed, with much muttering and fluffing of pillows. Five people made for a crowded bed but a warm one, and Caleb had slept in much worse places.

After a long silence Beau spoke again from the shadows near the floor. "One of the things they did back at the monastery," she said. "Not, like, one of their big things, but just a side thing was -- they had a little hospital for long-term invalids, people who couldn't -- look after themselves. Taking care of them was a kind of penalty duty, not for serious infractions, but the sort of thing they'd put you on if you were, like, rude to teachers and shit."

"Oh," Jester said. "You must have gotten that duty a _lot."_

Caleb winced, but Beau huffed a dry laugh instead. "Yeah, a fair amount," she agreed. "It -- sucked and I hated it, but what was I gonna do, yanno? I couldn't take it out on _them._   That wasn't fair, it wasn't their faults. So I learned."

"However you came by it, I am glad you have this knowledge," Caleb said quietly. "For Molly's sake."

"Yeah," Beau said.

There wasn't much more to say. The room grew quiet as, one by one, they dropped into uneasy sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

It had gone quiet now. The echoing voices of his friends had faded away. He could no longer see their faces at the top of the pit above him. He thought -- in a distant, uncertain sort of way -- that they were still nearby, but he couldn't hear them.

It had gone quiet and he waited for the light to go too, because he thought that must be what came next. The light and the voices would be gone and it would turn out that they had never existed at all, that it was only another dream, like the shimmering waves of shapes and colors that danced in the corner of his cell and tormented him with the promise of relief. It was another dream he'd wake up from and he'd be back there again.

He waited.

But the light never went out.

And he was not alone.

 

* * *

 

 

Nobody slept well that night (except perhaps Fjord, whose snores added to the light in keeping Caleb uneasily awake) but they did eventually sleep. He jolted awake in the morning to Jester wiggling between him and Nott as she crawled up on the bed beside Molly, pulling her holy symbol out from her blouse as she went.

Jester could be -- brusque at times when it came to healing the others. She took pride in her role as the protector of their health and wellbeing but that was not to say that she took it _seriously --_   Jester rarely did anything seriously. She was as likely to throw a healing spell from across the camp, or while passing by at a dead run, or whap someone in the face with a fan and tell them to walk it off.

This time though, she was conscientious about it. Holy symbol in her right hand as her left peeled bandages carefully back, light pouring from her fingers as she murmured incantations to the Traveler over every scrape and cut. Deep red gashes closed and sealed, bruises evaporated, raw ugly scrapes rinsed away leaving skin that was -- while not exactly unmarked -- at least whole.

She watched Molly's eyes anxiously the entire time. But when the last of the injuries disappeared and no recognition returned to that red gaze, the blue tiefling's shoulder slumped and her tail drooped.

"Well, he looks better now at least," Beau told Jester encouragingly.

"I don't know what else to try," Jester said, her face a picture of misery with just an edge of panic. "If that did not fix him…!"

"It has only been one day," Caleb muttered. "We must be patient."

Fjord rose to offer some direction to the group, as he so often did. "Maybe some time in the peace and quiet is all he needs," he said. "But in the meantime, we've all got things we can do. Yesterday when I was off gatherin' supplies I saw there's a place at the end of the street where we can all get baths, and maybe a bath for Molly too, if we can get him down there."

Jester brightened up. "Oh! A bath. Molly loves baths! Do you think that will work to get him to come back?"

 "It's not necessarily about it _working,_ " Fjord stressed. "But I think it is something we need to do if we want to be in the company of decent people anytime soon. And I think it would make him feel a right bit better, too."

No one else had any better ideas, so they started to pull themselves together. A night's rest had done much to restore their energy and endurance, but they were all feeling the aches and strains of the previous day. And uncertainty hung over each of them like a dirty, clinging fog that would not be chased away by the morning's light. If Molly didn't come back to himself, what would they do?

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The voices were back, echoing up in the light that had never gone away. And there'd been a new light -- a green one that reached all the way down to him in the pit.

It had taken the pain away, but Molly wasn't sure he liked that. The pain was all he had when he was alone in the dark. It was the only thing that let him know that he was alive. That he was real. A part of him wanted to bring it back, but he couldn't make himself move.

He was moving somewhere. Not under his own power, someone was carrying him. Was it Yasha? She'd carried him somewhere before, he'd thought. But he couldn't see her, or hear her. Where --

Oh…

Oh.

He was sinking and he was surrounded by water, soft and warm. It flowed up around him, filling up the space surrounding him until there was not a pocket of cold space left. Caressing his skin and easing the bitter cold in his bones. There was a moment of alarm that he might drown but he didn't, he just floated there with strong hands behind his head, keeping his face tipped out of the water.

He was --

He wasn't in the cell any more.

He wasn't in the cold and the dark, and every inch of his skin told him so. He'd known it on some level, known it for hours now, but a part of his mind hadn't let himself believe it. Now he knew. He was safe. He was free.

He was _out._

He closed his eyes and let the water float him upwards, towards the light.  


 

* * *

 

 

~tbc...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter got so long I decided to break it into two chapters. Whoops.
> 
> Warnings for reference to self-harm and a quick brush with suicidal thought in this chapter, all in the past.

 

When he opened his eyes again it was to the sight of a plain ceiling, golden sun slanting in from a window somewhere out of sight and throwing sharp shadows against the far wall. He felt weak as a kitten, wrung out as a dishrag. Every part of him hurt, especially his throat and his fingers. His head pounded and he was thirstier than he could ever remember being.

He heard rustling from somewhere else in the room but it took a monumental effort to turn his head to look. A thatch of dark hair and two long, green-pointed ears showed above the edge of the bed where she was sitting on the floor and going through her pack.

"Nott," he rasped.

Her head popped up like a jack-in-the-box, staring at him with wide yellow eyes. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "You're awake! I mean, I guess you've been awake all this time, but you're back? You're talking again?"

He tried to say something else, but his throat clicked and nothing came out. Nott climbed up the side of the bed and scrambled over him to reach the bedside table, on which sat a mug. "Here, drink this," she said, holding it up for him. "You were very dehydrated when you came out of the evil ball thing, and we haven't been able to get much water into you."

He didn't need any convincing. He drank in small sips; he tried to raise his hand to take the mug from her but she refused to relinquish it, which given the shaking weakness of his arm was probably the right decision. It was not water but some kind of lukewarm tea, which was bitter in his mouth but at least helped cut through some of the fuzziness. It didn't succeed in slaking all of his thirst, but it was a start.

At last he sat back against the pillows. "Thanks," he managed, his voice a little clearer this time.

It still hurt to talk. He thought he could remember why. He remembered… calling out, in the dark cell, shouting just to hear something. A fair amount of screaming, too. He didn't want to remember that part. He didn't want to remember any of those parts.

Nott frowned at the empty mug. "You still need more," she said. "I can go get some from the kitchen --"

"No, please," he said instantly, his hand shooting up to grasp at her sleeve. Her eyes went wide, but she sat back down.

"Okay," she said softly. Molly hated that soft tone as much as he needed it, needed her understanding but hated her pity.

"Hard to talk," he muttered, and she nodded. He glanced around. "Where?"

"We're back in town," Nott said. She set about straightening the covers up around his waist, an oddly maternal gesture that she didn't usually do for anyone but Caleb. "At the same inn as before. The others are all still at the bath house. They did you first, then they went back for their own baths, and I didn't want to go so I volunteered to stay here with you."

"Jester ok?" he managed.

Nott's smiled. "She's fine, she wasn't hurt," she said. "You're the one we were worried about! She healed you this morning but you still didn't wake up."

He opened his mouth, then closed it and shrugged a little. He still couldn't explain about the pit, and honestly he didn't want to try. Talking about it might bring it closer.

"Actually, if you're up I should let them know!" Nott climbed over to the side of the bed and took out her wire, speaking in hushed tones. Molly kind of wanted to eavesdrop but his attention kept wandering over to the window, to the beam of light dancing with dust motes.

It was a good window. He couldn't recall that he'd ever seen a better one, honestly, and he'd seen a lot. They kept turning up in the dark, too, shimmering images of dark glass with blurry landscapes scrolling behind them, but when he'd reached for them his hand had only met more stone.

He was struck by a sudden powerful urge to open this one. Just to make sure it was really there. He wanted --

The bed barely shifted as Nott scooted back up towards him. "They're on their way back," she reported. "But that reminds me… I wanted to ask, although you don't have to answer if you don't feel up to it. Did you get my Message? Back… back in the tower?"

"Yes," Molly said. "I got it."

He didn't tell her the rest -- he didn't have the words and it was too raw, too personal to let spill, blood out of a wound he wanted to keep staunched. He didn't tell her: _after the first day, I knew something was very wrong. After the first day, I ran out of hope. I thought you were all dead or imprisoned or that you had left me to rot. I thought that I was lost forever. I thought I would die alone in the dark._  

He didn't tell her: _your voice was the only thing that kept me from slitting my wrists on the second day and letting it all bleed out in one last blaze of light, because I thought that was better than dying mad of thirst in that pit._ He didn't tell her: _your voice got me to the end alive._

"Did it help?" Nott asked tentatively.

He nodded.

"Oh." She looked -- relieved, he thought, a little bit more at ease. "I'm glad I helped."

But still she fidgeted, biting her lip with sharp teeth, hands worrying at the edges of her sleeves. "Caleb was the one who saved you really, you know," she blurted out. "I just think you should know that, I think you ought to know how hard he fought for you. None of the rest of us understood what was happening to you, we were ready to just go back to town and try to find another wizard to get you out. Caleb wouldn't let us leave until he figured out what was going on with you, and once he did figure it out, he moved mountains to help you.

"None of us could have done what he did, none of us could have figured out magic like that. He was dead on his feet but he kept pushing because he wanted to save you. He made up a whole new spell that knocked down the barrier between worlds to drag you back. I just want you to know."

It shouldn't have hurt to hear that. It just confirmed what he'd already known (hoped) on some level the whole time: that his friends would do anything to get him home. That the people he loved, these weirdoes and misfits whom fate had thrown together, that they loved him too. That the man who was so reclusive and shy and more resistant than any of the rest of them to Molly's attempts to charm him, that this man --

It shouldn't have hurt, it shouldn't have made his vision blur and his eyes sting, a burning pain of too much salt and not enough tears to carry them, but it did.

"Molly? Oh shit, Molly? What's wrong?" Nott was beside him, clawed hands patting at his cheeks. "Uhm, uh, just pretend I didn't say any of that --"

"It's fine," Molly choked out, raising his wrist to swipe at his eyes. Moonweaver, he shook like a newborn calf, this was fucking humiliating. The salt burned across his temple where the tears streaked over his skin. "I'm just --"

"MOLLY!" The shout from the doorway heralded a blue streak across the room and an impact that bounced the mattress under him. He clutched for purchase, then a moment later his arms were full of Jester. "MOLLY YOU'RE AWAKE I'M SO GLAD I WAS SO WORRIED THANK THE TRAVELER YOU'RE OKAY!"

His hands went around her automatically even as his eyes moved past her, taking in the others who were piling in through the doorway. Fjord, smiling widely; Beau, trying to act casual and unconcerned and doing a shit job of it; Caleb, relief evident to anyone who knew him well enough to read his expressions, and… and…

His face fell when there was no further _and._   "Yasha?" he said, and cursed the dry throat that made his voice come out like a croak.

Jester pushed back far enough to meet his eyes, her face solemn. "She had to go, Molly, but she really didn't want to, she told me to tell you she _loves you_   and she's _sorry_   and she made me _pinky swear,_ she was so scared for you and she carried you here in her arms and everything --"

"But she's okay --" Molly started to say, then broke into dry racking coughs.

"She's  _fine,"_   Jester soothed, and Molly felt a cold band around his heart ease.

Nott jumped to her feet. "I'm going to get more drinks for Molly!" she announced and scampered out. She paused by the door enough to get in a quick, whispered conversation with Caleb; whatever they said, he stooped down to hug her for a moment before she scampered out, and Molly felt a twinge of irrational envy.

He hugged Jester instead, grateful to have a warm and real body to hold onto. For a moment she glowed, a viridescent green light that flickered up her arms and down his, and then his throat was suddenly less painful and talking was easier. "Drinks sounds great," he said, putting effort into keeping his voice level. "What proof are we talking."

Jester giggled. "Fuck no, no booze for you," Beau said. "You're a mess, you need to rehydrate first."

"Fuck you, Beau," he said, though it came out fondly. "I don't take orders from you."

Beau rolled her eyes and huffed. "Whatever, I just don't want us to be stuck lugging you around like a sack of potatoes any longer," she said. "So do you think you're done with the whole 'playing dead' schtick? Cause that got real old, real fast."

"Beau's right though, you were very sick," Jester said seriously. Her tone and expression made him itch -- he didn't want to see that concern, he didn't want that reminder. "The Traveler healed you up real good, but you're still like, super weak."

"Eh," Molly said, mustering up the strength for a shrug. "I've felt worse after a few all-nighters. I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Well, I sure hope so."  Fjord came around to the side of the bed and reached out to clasp Molly's shoulder, his hand warm and calloused and a point of contact against a blazing blizzard of emptiness. "Things aren't the same without you, roomie."

"Welcome back, Mollymauk," Caleb said quietly, and that seemed to be the signal for all of them to talk at once. He basked in the sound of their voices, reveled in the warmth of their presence, but it was all a blur that went over his head, joined into a swirl of noise in his ears.

"Drinks!" Nott announced as she burst into the room, her arms overburdened with carafes and juggling a heavy tray. "And food! I got some porridge out of the kitchen, you should eat that Molly."

Molly fell on the food gratefully; it wasn't until the smell had hit his nose that his stomach had awoken to the realization that he hadn't put anything solid in it for four days. Nor did he now, exactly; Nott had scrounged up a bowl of creamed oats, warm with butter and spiced with cinnamon and honey. It warmed his mouth, melted on his tongue and hardly hurt at all to swallow.

It actually brought tears to his eyes. Fuck. He was so fucking fragile right now.

"This is," he said through a full mouth, "the best thing I've ever eaten. Nothing like three days of starvation to really put the sauce on it!"

He'd meant it as a joke but the energy level in the room dipped a little bit when he said it, the relieved excitement they'd exhibited at seeing Molly up and around dampened by this reminder. Jester in particular looked a little sad, almost threatening tears herself.

"All right, come on," Fjord said, breaking the moment. "Let's not all stand around and stare at Molly while he eats. We've got things to do."

"Yeah, don't all be a bunch of food-voyeurs," Molly said, wagging his spoon at them before he went back for another bite.

"Once you're done stuffing your face you should probably go back to sleep," Beau said, a bit of a surprise coming from her. "Rest up a bit while you let that new food get in your system, get some strength back."

"If I'm meant to be resting up, you should definitely be elsewhere," Molly told her. "Your presence is exhausting."

"Fuck me, see if I try to be concerned for your _welfare_   ever again," Beau huffed, and Molly felt a pang of remorse.

"Thanks, Beau," he said more quietly, and that was unexpected enough that she froze in place for a moment. He glanced around and amended the statement more generally. "Thanks to all of you, honestly. For the food, and for patching me up, and…"

"Hells, Molly, it was nothing," Fjord said firmly. "You're one of the Mighty Nein, and we look after our own."

That sparked a warm glow in Molly's chest, sweeter than honey and brighter than cinnamon; he tried to capture it, keep it for later, for other moments in the dark.

"All right, you saps," he said, his voice only a little choked up. "Don't you have other places to be?"

"As a matter of fact, we do," Fjord said. "Rest up, Molly. We'll check in on you later."

"Time for shopping!" Jester cheered, and Nott voiced agreement. The rest of the Nein began to shuffle towards the door.

"Uh -- Caleb can stay," Molly said impulsively.

The rest of the Nein turned to look at him in astonishment, including the man himself. "Er, me?" Caleb said.

"Well sure," Molly said, reaching for some bullshit he could use to cover the gap. "You all are just a little too loud for comfort right now, you're giving me a headache."

"We're giving _you_   a headache? You're a walking headache," Beau said, and Molly smiled at her.

"Besides, I have something I'd like to talk to Caleb about in private," he said, and turned his gaze to Nott. She looked between him and Caleb and brightened up, giving him an approving nod and thumbs up.

Caleb eyed her with misgivings, but his expression softened when he turned back to Molly. "Certainly I can stay," Caleb said. "I need to put my notes in order, anyway."

"Great," Molly said, once the others were out of sight. He moved the bowl aside and one arm out to Caleb in imperious demand. "Help me up."

"I am very certain you should not be up yet," Caleb said, making no move to take Molly's arm.

"I'm not going far," Molly wheedled. "I just want to move to a chair over by the window, that's all."

"Why," Caleb said, and his inflection made it not a question.

"You have to ask?" Molly huffed. "I just…" He looked away. "I just want to be able to feel the fresh air. That's all."

Caleb didn't answer, but he stepped to the side and Molly heard the creak of furniture being dragged across the floor.

After a few minutes of struggling they got Molly situated in the chair,  flush against the wall by the window. Molly opened the latch and cracked the window open, breakfast going cold in his lap, letting the cool breeze flow across his skin.

The chair was harder and less comfortable with the bed, colder without blankets to guard against the draft. But the window had air and light, and through it on the street below he could see people passing by, and so it had everything.

"So," Molly said. His voice was still rough and scratchy but it was such a relief to be able to use it again. "A little bird told me I have you to thank for getting me out of there."

Caleb didn't answer at first, busy sorting through handfuls of notepaper he had pulled out of his pack to lay out on the bed. "Was this bird a little magpie who loves shiny things?" he said at last.

"With green and black plumage," Molly agreed. "She was _very insistent_ that I know who to thank."

"She's exaggerating," Caleb said. "The girls helped me research the spell, to gather the ingredients, and Fjord was the one who actually cast it."

Molly sighed. "See, this is exactly why Nott feels the need to sing your praises," he said. He leaned over into Caleb's space, making himself increasingly difficult to ignore. "Left to yourself, you're far too outrageously modest. Like just now, when you felt the need to downplay what an amazing feat you pulled off for my sake."

Caleb looked away, but his lips softened in the hint of a smile. "Everyone should have a goblin friend to be their cheerleader," he said.

Molly hummed agreement. "And a wizard friend to get them out of a tight spot," he said. He regarded Caleb a moment longer, feeling a warmth growing in his chest that he didn't want to put a name to. "They'll have to get their own, though. I don't think I care to share."

The smile grew, and Molly's heart stuttered and thumped a bit harder in his chest. For the first time since he'd touched that damn ball he felt happy and light, and he didn't want to lose this fragile moment. "Stay with me tonight?" he blurted.

Caleb straightened up slowly. "Are you sure?" he said. Some of Molly's panic must have shown on his face because he quickly added, "I do not mean to leave you alone, but I know I am not the most congenial of roommates. I could get one of the others, if you would prefer Jester, or if you would rather have Fjord back."

"I --" Molly bit his lip, winced when his sharp teeth encountered the ragged edges. "I'd really rather have you."

Caleb blinked slowly. Molly manufactured a shrug, tried to make it look casual. "Well, maybe it's irrational," he said. "But I think I'd feel better if I knew -- if some part of me _knew --_   that if I woke up back in that cell, then I'd have you close at hand to pull me out of it again."

"I see," Caleb said, and his face was closed and his voice reserved. It was hard to say whether he was swayed Molly's reasoning, or if he even believed him.

Molly tried to be honest with himself as much as possible; it made it harder to keep all your stories straight with others if you didn't at least know the truth about yourself. And he was honest enough to admit that he'd had a crush on Caleb Widogast for quite a long time now. Not quite love at first sight -- that was a bit too romantic and dramatic even for him -- but by the time they'd all left Trostenwald, yes, there was something there. It had only grown over the course of their travels together; his heart burned a little bit hotter every time he watched Caleb command magic so effortlessly, melted a little more every time he saw Caleb smile or tell a joke or be cute with his cat.

He'd had a crush on Caleb for some time now but he'd never allowed himself to act on it. Never meant to, not as long as Caleb held himself so close and so defensively, his guarded speech and wary body language screaming of a wounded animal that it would be dangerous to corner. Not once in their entire acquaintance had Caleb flirted back, or shown any indication that he even had a sexuality buried anywhere behind those layers of trauma. He'd set a perimeter around himself as clear and razor-sharp as his favorite silver wire and Molly had been bound and he had been _determined_   that he would not be the one to cross that line. He was a grown-ass tiefling, he could respect other people's boundaries, he could manage his own inconvenient feelings and occupy himself elsewhere. And up until now, he had.

Now, though. Now he was feeling low and shaky and thin, holding on to his self-possession by the tips of his shattered claws, tenuous and fragile. Now, he needed to sleep, and he needed his most important people to stay with him while he slept. Yasha had always been there for him, but Yasha wasn't here now. Caleb was.

"Please," he said. "Please stay."

Thankfully Caleb didn't argue further. He just nodded slowly. "If it's me you want," he said quietly. "I will stay."

They fell into a comfortable silence after that, Caleb taking over the desk in the corner to copy spells while Molly sat by the window and enjoyed the breeze, occasionally sticking his hand out through the opening just because he _could._   As the light dwindled the moon rose over the rooftops and he enjoyed that, too.

Eventually it became too cold by the window and drove Molly back to the bed, tired to his bones despite not having done anything with the day except laze about. He dozed while Caleb copied, pen scratching at the page.

At last Caleb closed his book, got up and closed the window, went to the door and opened it, murmuring to someone out in the hallway. (Probably Nott, though Molly couldn't hear from in here.) He closed the door and pulled out his silver thread, stringing it around the room, before he finally relented enough to pull off his boots and coat.

Molly didn't have much dignity left, he was prepared to beg; but even without being asked Caleb left the candle burning, and even without being asked Caleb ignored the second bed and climbed in beside him, the second body starting to warm the space under the covers almost immediately. He snapped his fingers in the shadows and Frumpkin was there, nosing his way under the covers to curl up in the space between them.

"Thank you," Molly whispered in the dimness -- not darkness, thank the Moonweaver, never again darkness. "Thank you, Caleb."

"I would do it again. In a heartbeat," Caleb promised him quietly, and a shadowy arm crossed over the Frumpkin-barrier and a weathered hand took his own. _"Schlafen sie gut,_ Mollymauk." 

 

* * *

 

 

The second day passed much like the first; the rest of the Mighty Nein went out on errands (or missions, he suspected, though nobody told him about any of them) but one person always stayed behind to ensure he wouldn't be alone. Yasha did not return, to his disappointment; but she always came back eventually and she always seemed to be able to find them even if they'd moved on from the last place they'd met. Caleb rotated out for Nott, who fussed over him like a child; Jester, who plied him with sugary treats and chattered relentlessly about her last trip to the Trispires district; Beau, who only lasted a few hours before they got into a sniping match; and Fjord, who took his accustomed place as Molly's roommate. He had to admit he'd missed the sound of Fjord's snoring. Who would have thought.

They always kept a light on without him needing to ask for it.

Molly woke up on the third day at dawn, for once coming awake naturally instead of being roused by noise or movement in the room with him. He took a long moment to stretch, reveling in being able to extend his arms and legs without running into any walls, cracked his neck and wrung his tail.

He got up and paced around the inn room, feeling his steps and swinging his arms, testing his range of motion. Better, he decided. Still weak, arms were floppy, he could lift his swords but not hold them up for long. He could stand and walk on his own, but didn't like his chances on a ten-mile hike.

He'd been hungry before, he'd gone a few days on an empty stomach before -- even after joining the circus. There had been a few rough patches for the Fletching and Moondrop Carnival of Curiosities, a few days when the adults had all mutually agreed to eat grass soup for the night if it meant Toya would have bread for the morning. This shakiness would pass, he knew, as long as he got solid meals for the next couple weeks. Easy.

Nothing to worry about, nothing to dwell on, nothing to think about at all. Yeah. 

Fjord was still asleep on his bed, snoring away. Molly went and hauled his kit out from under the bed, and got to work.

 

* * *

 

~tbc...


	5. Chapter 5

 

By the time he emerged from the bathroom, the morning had advanced enough that the rest of them were downstairs eating breakfast in the inn's common room. They looked up at the sound of boots on the stairs, and Molly struck a pose as he came into view.

He'd pulled on his best and gaudiest clothes, put on every piece of jewelry he'd owned, and even done his makeup (which he didn't usually bother to do when they were on the road.) He looked good and he knew it, preening under the combined surprised stares of his friends. No one, he was sure, no one would even _suspect_   that just a few days ago he'd been a wretched wreck of a tiefling.

"Molly!" Jester said, springing to her feet and running over to him. She grabbed him in a hug that pulled him off his feet on the steps, groping for purchase; she spun them both around happily before setting him down. "You're feeling better!"

"Yes, dear, I'm all better," he laughed. He bobbed a little bow towards her, all showy flourish, and another in the direction of the table. "No small thanks to you, and the combined efforts of all of you."

"Look!" Jester practically danced back to the table, all beaming smiles. "Molly's all better again."

"And I'm feeling left out," he said dramatically, sweeping his arms wide to encompass the scene. "You're having war councils without me! What are we up to now? What's the gossip? Dish me in!"

He pulled a chair away from the table and dropped into it, all the better to hide the quick tremble of legs that didn't want to stay steady through the flex. He pulled his feet up onto the table next to Beau's plate and crossed his booted feet at the ankles, deliberately insolent, and smiled toothily at Beau.

The monk groaned. "Fuck dude, he sure is," she grumbled, and shoved his feet away from her plate. He let her with a laugh, largely because he couldn't stop her.

"He certainly seems to be," Caleb murmured, and Molly shot him an uneasy glance; the wizard was watching him intently. He looked away, discomfited, and turned his smile to the rest of them.

"So," he said. "This smuggling ring, what's up with that?"

"Good to have you back, Molly," Fjord said with a smile. "Well, we've been askin' around for anyone who might have seen the deliveries going out…"

He launched into the briefing and Molly listened, occasionally stealing bits of food from Beau on one side and Jester on the other. He felt eyes on him and glanced over to see Nott staring at him with a slight frown on her face -- no, not at him. At his hands.

_Fuck._

The humans might not notice, but Nott definitely would -- her hands were like his, after all. Jester had healed his hands, but healing couldn't fix his claws. He'd scratched them against the stone until they'd splintered down to the nub, half of them ripped off at the bed. They'd grow back eventually -- they were part of his bones, after all -- but healing magic couldn't make it happen faster.

He pulled his hands back quickly and placed them behind his head, fingers laced together out of sight. Gave her a smile when she followed his hands up to meet his eyes. _Nothing's wrong, what are you looking at?_   the smile said. She frowned, looking troubled, but Jester asked her a question and her attention was diverted.  Molly breathed again, and was careful to keep his hands out of sight for the rest of the conversation.

Every now and then he would glance over at Caleb and find the wizard watching him, his eyes hooded and his face unreadable.

He'd spent so much time showing off for Caleb, trying to get the wizard to look at him; why did it have to be _now,_   when he had the most to hide, that Caleb decided to turn that focus on him?

 

* * *

 

 

Caleb kept an eye on Molly for the rest of the day, half his attention on the tiefling while the other half tracked the conversation. He'd gotten good at dividing his attention this way, with most of his concentration on a book before him while he kept an ear out for danger (even if, more recently, the danger was only that of Jester or Beau conspiring to prank or distract him.)

Instead of a book, this time, he was reading one Mollymauk Tealeaf. The tiefling put up a good front of normalcy, bantering with the others and clowning around, but it was all just a bit too studied. Caleb thought: _it's an act._

Molly had been a circus man before he became an adventurer, after all. He would know all about performance.

But there were times when the façade slipped, especially when he thought no one was looking at him. Moments when he went to pick something up and was brought up short by his missing claws; moments when his attention would slip to something none of the rest of them could see. Moments before he'd snap out of it and laugh louder, spin some joke to distract everyone.

The day drew on to evening without incident. They still had a few leads to follow in the smuggling case, but for the most part there was nothing they could do until their sources in the Crownsguard got back to them. After dinner the party fell into a leisurely discussion of how to spend the evening, and the moment Caleb had been half-expecting all day came: Molly pushed back from the table, gave the rest of them a wide grin and stood up.

"Well, this all sounds like a lot of fun," he said in a carefully casual tone of voice. "But I think I'm going to go out and hit the streets. Time to see what delights this city holds!"

Fjord cast him a doubtful look. "I'm not sure this is the sort of place that offers, uh, paid companionship," he said.

"Oh they're around here somewhere," Jester said knowingly. "There was never a city that didn't have ladies-of-the-night _somewhere._ I don't know that they're very clean, though."

Molly shrugged. "Who said anything about paid companionship? I was just going to go looking for other visitors like us who are here for a good time," he said. "In a city this size there's sure to be _some_ body just out to party, someone whose gaze would be caught by a handsome specimen like myself."

Beau pretended to gag. "Yeah, in a city this big there's gotta be _somebody_   with sufficiently shitty taste," she said, and Molly flipped her off cheerfully.

"Oh, okay, well have fun Molly!" Jester said, smiling and waving cheerfully. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

"Is there anything you wouldn't do?" Nott said wonderingly.

"Sure," Jester said. "Don't spend all your money and end up broke in a bad part of town! Don't take any drugs you don't know what they do! Don't try to have sex with more than three people at once!"

"No promises," Molly laughed, and headed for the door. Caleb waited only long enough for the tiefling to pass out of sight, then shoved to his feet and followed after him. Nott sent him a questioning look and he shook his head slightly. She sat back down, giving him a nod in return. She trusted him to know what he was doing.

Gods, he wished he knew what he was doing.

 

* * *

 

  
Once outside Molly stopped for a few minutes and stood with his face tipped upwards, breathing the damp night air. He'd come down the stairs to the side door by the kitchen, not out the main entrance, so there was less foot traffic on this side of the building. 

Overhead the sky was mostly clear, the moon visible through a haze, but this close to the ground the fog turned into a fine drizzle that fell half-visibly through the air. The lamps hung outside the inn door cast haloes through the damp, rings of gold light that shimmered with the movement of the watery haze. A peaceful interlude, one that went some way to soothing the agitation that had been building in the back of his skull all day.

As he looked up and down the street, trying to decide on a destination, footsteps clattered on the stairs behind him. He looked back over his shoulder, then did a double-take when the door swung open and Caleb stepped out. "Mister Caleb!" he said with a smile. "Did you want to join me for a night on the town? I didn't think that sort of thing was your style."

"It's not," Caleb said. He looked serious -- when did he not? -- the lamplight casting a faint halo around him as he walked towards Molly. 

Caleb didn't usually initiate physical contact, which was probably why Molly didn't react quickly enough when Caleb reached forward and took Molly's arm, walking them both back to pin him against the wall. "What?" Molly felt his smile melt away, replaced by a scowl. "What are you doing?"

"I am not letting you go out to get in trouble in a strange town by yourself," Caleb said bluntly.  "This is a terrible idea."

Molly shrugged. "Well you know me, I'm all about terrible ideas," he said. He pushed against Caleb's grasp but for once, Caleb didn't give way.

Molly scowled at him. Caleb didn't usually push, didn't challenge the others in contests of strength. If anything he was more likely to feign weakness, if only to get out of chores that involved lifting or carrying. But he _was_   a full-grown man accustomed to hard travel, and possibly for the first time in their acquaintance he was _pushing back._ "Caleb, quit it. Let me go."

 Caleb shook his head. "I don't want you propositioning strangers in this state," he said.

"What? What state?" Molly demanded.

"You have just been through an ordeal," Caleb said. "I know you are not as well as you are pretending to be for the others. This is not a good time to make yourself vulnerable around strangers, not when you are not fully in control of the circumstances."

Molly rolled his eyes theatrically. "Oh please, you think I can't defend myself?" he said. He reached down with his free hand to brush against his sword hilt, a pointed hint. The whole setup gave him a strange sense of  _deja vu;_   last time it had been him pinning Caleb up against the wall, giving him veiled threats. But if Caleb heard the warning this time around he was unmoved by it. Fuck, why would he be moved by it? If Molly couldn't even push Caleb off him what chance would he have against a determined assailant? 

"I'm afraid that right now, perhaps you would not," Caleb said quietly.

That felt like a slap in the face, stung in the way that things only could which were half-buried in truth. "What business is this of yours, anyway?" Molly snapped. He shoved back harder and this time Caleb let him go, releasing his grasp and taking a step back. "You're not my babysitter, you're not my parent, I don't fucking belong to you!"

"You are my friend, my teammate," Caleb said stubbornly. "I would be remiss if I did not look out for you when you were unwell and I -- Mollymauk, I _care_ about you. I am afraid for you." Despite all his stiff self-control his voice cracked on the last words.

Well, that had a way of making him feel like an ass. Molly's shoulders slumped as the anger ran out of him. "I… I guess you're right, but…"  He looked up into Caleb's face, desperately seeking a point of contact, of communication.  "Look, I _need_ this," he said. "Right now I need -- to get out of my head, to get lost in my body. In _someone's_  body. I need this, to remind myself that I'm still alive."

"I understand," Caleb said. Molly shot him a disbelieving glance and he put his hands up in placation. "I -- I do. Truly. I just don't want you to go with a stranger right now."

Molly snorted. "You got any better ideas?"

Caleb was silent for a moment. The golden light caught in bright droplets of rain on his hair and coat, but his expression was half-lost in the shadow.  "You could do it with me,"  he said at last.

Molly stared. And stared. He felt poleaxed, like someone had just struck him with a lead weight between the horns. " _What?!"_   he finally sputtered, after several attempts.

"I would be willing," Caleb said, as calm and reasonable-sounding as though he were offering to trade watch shifts.  "Whatever you need, Mollymauk. If you need to fuck me, or if you need for me to --"

"No!" Molly exclaimed. What the fuck, where had this even come from? Was this one of Caleb's little games that he thought the rest of them didn't notice, where he thought people would not like him unless he made himself _useful_   to them?

 "I don't understand, you get what you need, and I would also get something out of it, it's not such a -- "

"No! Caleb, I'm not going to have a casual one-night stand with you!" Molly said vehemently.

The words fell into a sudden silence between them. Caleb took a step back, drawing his arms around himself. He had that expression on his face that Molly hated, the hollow-cheeked expression that said 'I'm stuck in a thornbrake but for whatever Gods-forsaken reason I either will not or can not move away from the source of my pain.'   "I see," he said, his voice hollow and cold.  "I know I'm not the most attractive of partners, but I thought --"

"Oh fuck you, Caleb Widogast, how did this suddenly get to be about your insecurities?" Molly snapped, suddenly angry. "It's got nothing to -- ugh!" He pulled at his hair, scattering drops of water. "I just need -- I just wanted to have a good time, to have some casual sex. But with you, it couldn't be  _just_   sex!"

Caleb stared. "I don't understand."

"No you don't, because you're an idiot!" Molly pushed forward, jabbing his finger into Caleb's chest. "Fuck you, Caleb, fuck you for doing this to me. I didn't  _want_   to fall in love with any of my teammates, especially not  _you,_   with your thorns and your walls and your books that you hide in, but  _I did!"_

Caleb looked down at Molly's finger against his chest, looked back up at Molly's face, looking adorably confused "You… love me?" he said slowly.   As though Molly had been speaking Infernal, or Marquesian, or any language at all except plain old common. "But -- why?"

" _Why?_  After the last few days we've had, how can you even ask that?" Molly flung his hands into the air. "Because you're handsome and brilliant and brave and kind and you pulled me _out_ and, and you're not  _ready_   for a relationship and even I could see that and I didn't want to  _push,_  and I --"

That was as far as he got; Caleb moved in, pushed Molly back up against the wall and kissed him.

He'd imagined a hundred different kisses with Caleb  but none of them quite lived up to the reality: the softly falling mist around them, the pale glow of the lanterns, the chapped and bitten skin on Caleb's lips that gave way to the hot slickness of his mouth inside. The faint smell of ozone that always hung around him even when he wasn't casting was an iron tang on his tongue, the unexpected coolness of his upper lip compared to the rest of his mouth. It was nothing like he had imagined and it was a hundred, a  _thousand_   times better.

The kiss had ended for a good five seconds before Molly reacted, snapping back to the present and staring -- no, _gawking --_   at Caleb.

There was a dark gleam in his eye as he met Molly's gaze. Was he amused or was he angry? It wasn't always easy to tell with Caleb. "I would appreciate if you did not put words in my mouth, Mister Mollymauk," he said.

Now that was a straight line that had half a dozen responses, and Molly had one ready on the tip of his forked tongue before he thought better of it. "Um," Molly said instead, but Caleb wasn't done.

"I don't think I am what you think," Caleb said, quiet and serious. "I am not brave and I am not kind, I am in fact a very selfish person -- selfish enough that I was willing to take advantage of a vulnerable friend in the hopes of getting something I had wanted for a very long time."

Oh no, oh no he didn't. Molly had just gotten one of the best and most unexpected kisses of his short life, he was not going to lose Caleb to a stupid spiral of misdirected guilt and self-recrimination _now,_ not when he had just had his crush so thoroughly reciprocated. He grabbed Caleb's shoulders and pulled him back in, returning the kiss with compound interest.

By the lady of moonlight, how had he ever thought he could _lose_ himself in someone else's body? In this body? He was finding himself with every touch, every caress, every inch of Caleb that pressed against him. He had to get as close as he could, finding his chest against Caleb's chest, his hips against Caleb's hips, his thigh between Caleb's thighs. If he could crawl his way inside Caleb's chest cavity he would, so that he could be inside Caleb's heart the way Caleb was already inside his own.

His hands wandered over Caleb's arms, his shoulders, his back, questing for gaps in his armor of cloth that he could worm his way inside. Caleb's shoulders and back were so bony, he loved them. His skin was rough with old scars, his beard thick and uncombed, and Molly loved them. Little squeaking gasps escaped him every time Molly kissed him and touched him, and he loved them. He loved it. He loved him.

A fat drop of water struck his head, ran down against his scalp and dripped into his eyes, and he finally gasped and came up for air. A glance overhead confirmed it: clouds had moved in and the rain was getting heavier, the fine drizzle turning into a proper freshet. He couldn't help it -- he laughed, burying his head against Caleb's shoulder, feeling the water seep into his clothes and run down his skin.

"Maybe this isn't the best place for this," he said, and Caleb sighed in agreement.

"Back inside?" Caleb said, his voice rough. He cleared his throat, but couldn't disguise the dark flush in his cheeks or his dilated pupils. His hair was furrowed from Molly's fingers, his collar awry, and nobody looking at him was going to mistake what he'd just been doing.  Or with whom.

Molly grinned, every inch of his body buoyant with delight. "After you, Mister Caleb," he said.

They went up the stairs together, hand in hand. 

* * *

 

 

~end.


End file.
